Synopsis

This riveting romance about a Japanese woman's relationship with an African-American soldier won the Bungei Prize in 1985. Amy Yamada burst onto the literary scene with this novel, which attracted much public attention for its audacious content when it first appeared. In awarding it the Bungei Prize, however, jury member Jun Eto urged people to recognize its high artistic value, arguing it to be "the most extraordinary work not only by a new writer but indeed by any writer published in Japan this year."

One glance is all it takes for Kim, a nightclub singer, to fall in love with Spoon, an African-American deserter from the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka. In moments the two are having sex in the boiler room behind the club, after which they start living together. Their feverish passion, fed by drugs and booze, plunges them into a luridly degenerate life through which Kim becomes increasingly dependent on Spoon. Spoon's arrest on charges of attempting to sell stolen military secrets to another country brings the relationship to an abrupt end, however, and Kim is left with nothing but the painful awareness of how much Spoon had meant to her life.

About the Author

Amy Yamada (1959–) , who published as a manga writer before making her literary debut, has proven herself an author of rare talent from day one, but perhaps her greatest strength comes from having relentlessly honed her craft in the years since. The results of this dedication are impressively displayed in her more recent short stories in particular. Her first big splash on the literary scene came with the novella Bedtime Eyes in 1985 (tr. 2006), which won the Bungei Prize. Among other awards, she received the Naoki Prize in 1987 for her story Soru myujikku rabazu onri (Soul Music Lovers Only); the Women's Literature Prize in 1991 for the novel Trash (tr. 1996); the Yomiuri Prize for Literature in 2000 for Ei tu zi (A2Z); and the Tanizaki Jun'ichiro Prize in 2005 for her collection of stories Fumi zekka (Wonderful Flavor). Books by this author